ROBERTO MANCINI’S misgivings about Manchester City’s ability to make an impact in the Champions League have proved painfully and embarrassingly correct.

Roberto Mancini shows his exasperation on the sideline against Dortmund []

Mancini surprised many observers when he claimed in August that City, fresh from their dramatic Premier League title triumph, did not have a good enough squad to win Europe’s top club competition.

It seemed a bizarre statement when he had spent £250million of Abu Dhabi billionaire Sheikh Mansour’s money in assembling a squad of talented international stars good enough to win first the FA Cup and then the Premier League in back-to-back seasons.

But Mancini wanted Robin van Persie, Eden Hazard, Javi Martinez and Daniele De Rossi to strengthen his team further.

Instead he got Jack Rodwell, Javi Garcia, Scott Sinclair, Maicon and Matija Nastasic, all in an unseemly hurry towards the end of the transfer window. Three months later, only Nastasic could be termed a qualified success.

Earlier this season, Mancini claimed he knew what was wrong with City and he would “fix it”. The trouble is, every time he has tried to solve a problem, another has arisen. First, it was a vulnerable defence that was incapable of keeping a clean sheet, then a lack of creativity in midfield and, finally, a goals crisis among his strikers.

If the intention was to get out of playing in the Europa League then City did a great job

Ruud Gullit

City appear to have gone backwards in Europe and are treading water in the Premier League with the acid test of Sunday’s Manchester derby looming.

Mancini and his players walked into a barrage of criticism when they returned from Germany yesterday. If earning the unwanted status of England’s worst performing team in the Champions League was not bad enough, they were accused of not earning their astronomical salaries, not trying and not learning from their mistakes.

Dietmar Hamann, who won the Champions League with Liverpool before spending three years at City, led the way with a scathing assessment of their display in the 1-0 loss to Borussia Dortmund which left them bottom of Group D with only three points.

But Mancini did not escape the flak either, with his former Sampdoria team-mate Ruud Gullit questioning some of his signings and former England manager Glenn Hoddle claiming the players were struggling with his tactics.

Hamann said: “Sometimes if you pay these players big wages it takes the edge off them. This is not the first time this has happened to City.

“Anyone can have a bad game but if you have six bad games in Europe, like they did last year, and then six more this season, you have to question their will to win.

“Too often, if it gets tough, they don’t want to go the extra yard. If you do that in the Champions League you get found out. It was a tough group but to get so few points borders on embarrassing.”

Although City were without two of their best players, the injured David Silva and the suspended Yaya Toure, Hamann pointed out that they still fielded an international in every position. And he seized on goalkeeper Joe Hart’s post-match comment that the team “have some issues to address” to suggest not all is well in the camp.

“City really don’t have the conviction to play in this league,” added Hamann. “They used 14 international players during the game. These are the players the manager wanted. The gulf between them and Dortmund looked big.

“Borussia rested some of their top players. The players who came in for City all cost a lot of money. The Borussia players didn’t. I saw one team that had the will to win and one that didn’t.

“If I didn’t know beforehand what their position in the group was, I would have thought that Borussia had something to play for and City didn’t. It was a very disappointing performance from start to finish, apart from Joe Hart.

“Clearly, as Hart said afterwards, things are not right in the camp.” Gullit, another former European Cup winner, questioned whether City were even attempting to finish third in the group and salvage a place in the Europa League. He also questioned the wisdom of allowing Nigel de Jong and Adam Johnson to leave the club during the summer.

“If the intention was to get out of playing in the Europa League then City did a great job,” said Gullit. “If their intention was to win to get in to the Europa League then they made a fool of themselves.

“It was dreadful. I didn’t see anybody getting mad or angry or even looking like they wanted to do it. Even if they didn’t want to play in the Europa League, they could at least have made an effort. They had some good players and they sold them.

“They bought a lot of players for their name. I don’t think they bought players for other reasons. I don’t see the reason they bought Maicon. Maybe someone can tell me that.

“Mancini said after one defeat this season that he knew what the problem was and he would fix it. I have not seen that he has fixed it. I just see them playing worse and worse. There are lots of things that don’t bode well in this team.”

Hoddle was equally scathing. “It concerns me in Europe how City don’t work hard to win the ball back or show passion,” he said.

“There is no pressure on the ball. There is nobody giving information. They are playing as individuals.

“Top teams like Barcelona play together and go after the ball together. City can’t give teams that much space and time in Europe. If they do, they will continue to get picked off.

“Mancini has to look at himself in terms of both sides of the coin, attacking and defending, when you play at this level. He went in to a back three in the second half and that is fine. But the players don’t look as though they know what they are doing. That system looks to be causing City a problem.

“They have to be drilled about how they are going to win the ball back in that system. There have to be some questions aimed at the manager and the staff.”

As Mancini ponders all that advice, his first task is to lift his players ahead of a game against the old enemy that could change the shape of City’s season.